This study begins with a common finding in the sociology of urban working class life. Though variable, alienation, job dissatisfaction and chronic sense of grievace are pervasive. This conclusion suggests a question: how is this state of affairs handled? Sociologists correlate dissatisfaction with elements of the workplace and workers' backgrounds. Consequences are posited and evidence presented regarding absenteeism, tardiness, labor turnover, illness. Actual life processes by which the sense of grievance affects interaction on and off the job are rarely studied. The first objective of this study is to describe the process by which a sense of grievance is managed. How are grievances supressed or transformed in everyday life? Working class life contains a sense of complaint wider and more informal than the few formally pursued grievance cases. Yet rarely do we see organized political expressions challenging the established situation of union-state-management machinery for grievances. What is the governance process through which grievances are mediated? How are the grievances expressed? The form and substance of a sense of grievance varies according to industrial attributes like technology and work-organization and also according to age, sex, and race and educational background. Another objective of this study is to understand the variation in the sense of grievance and relate these differences to the grievance management process. A final objective is to explore the ways that pent-up grievances explode or otherwise affect mental health on or off the job. The production and management of grievance and the connection between workplace grievances and external eruptions will be explored through 100 in-depth interviews in three economic sectors, 6-10 oral histories, participant observations over two yars in three occupations, 9 discussion groups meeting three times and officially filed grievances in three unions.